Anthony Mackie Wants Jonathan Demme To Direct His Jesse Owens Biopic

Anthony Mackie Wants Jonathan Demme To Direct His Jesse Owens Biopic

We already know that Anthony Mackie has expressed his desire to portray legendary Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, and has in fact long been developing a film based on the man’s life.

In a recent interview with The Playlist, in reference to who will direct the project, he said: “The problem is, you have a lot of directors who can do action, you’ve got a lot of directors who can do storytelling. You don’t have many directors who can do both. Those directors are so few and far between that you don’t want to make this movie with the wrong director… So, it’s at the point now where it’s trying to get on that slate of trying to find that guy or lady or person who can just make that story the way it deserves to be made. “

And so who’s number 1 on Mackie’s list… his dream director for this project, as he says? Jonathan Demme, who’s certainly no stranger to documenting the lives of real-life figures – from Neil Young, to Jimmy Carter, to Jean Dominique; although those were all documentaries.

However, in Vanessa’s post announcing Mackie’s Jesse Owens interests, I shared my thoughts on who would be a good choice to direct the film – Paul Greengrass, also no stranger to documentaries, and whose documentary-like/realistic dramatizations of real-life events would suit how I envision this film being made.

So, Jonathan Demme’s skills as a documentary filmmaker could be of value here and thus render similar results.